Who can resist a good story about witches? I know I can't! I heard many good things about Anya Bergman's 'Witches of Vardo' and I was excited to get stuck in. I enjoyed the character-building, despite it being a little slow for me at times. It's great to have a focus on these fierce young (and old) women fighting for their freedoms. The weaving of folktales in the main story was also a nice touch.

It's impressive to learn how much research has been done to honour all the women who were witch-hunted, tortured, and burnt at the stake, and that the novel was based on real events. It made it a lot more tangible and moving. I have enjoyed other books on the same topic, and I'm glad I've read this one too. I'll be on the lookout for more from Anya.

I find myself drawn to stories about witches and witch trials and the persecution of wise women in history. There were so many tragic deaths and little hope for any accused woman. This audiobook captured me from the very beginning with the lyrical narration. I was mesmerised by the chanting of the names and so pleased to be listening as I wouldn’t have been able to do full justice to them if I’d been reading as I’d not had known the correct pronunciation. The atmosphere of the island, the personalities of the women and girls, the cruelty of the men: all were exquisitely captured and brought to life in the story. Fact and fiction are deftly blended. This is a must read / listen for anyone interested in the witch trials.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for access to the audio book in exchange for a review.

The Narrator did an excellent job. Well crafted, some great characters and beautifully descriptive in parts. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Thanks NetGalley and publishers for the Audio arc of The witches of vardo.

It started off a bit slow and I was close to giving up a few times, but then boom.. I was sucked in and didn’t want it to end.

A superbly narrated book about three women accused by the patriarchy of being witches and thrown into a barbaric pit whilst they undergo trial. Amazingly, this rich narrative is steeped in historical fact, alluding to the Scandinavian witch trials of the 1660s. The women suffer appalling conditions and treatment. Their stoicism and acts of survival are astounding, even if questionable, at times. One of my favourite aspects of the book is the Nordic and Sami folk tales dispersed throughout, adding an extra layer of depth. The perfect listen for those who love female led narratives with strong, stoic women, for those with an interest in the witch trials and the persecution of women accused of being witches, and for anyone with a love of Scandinavian or Nordic folklore. #thewitchesofvardø #anyabergman #netgalley

Wow! This was definitely historically relevant and i really enjoyed the authors interpretation of the events. I got super into the accent and was loving the names. I liked the aspect of mystery in this story and not knowing whether there really was or wasnt real magic until the end.

"The Witches of Vardø" by Anya Bergman is a gripping historical fiction novel during the witch trials in Norway in 1662. The story revolves around Zigri, a woman accused of witchcraft after her affair with a local merchant is exposed, and her daughter Ingeborg, who embarks on a perilous journey to rescue her mother. Along the way, Ingeborg meets Maren, the daughter of a condemned witch, who inspires her with her free-spirited nature and helps her find the courage to fight for her family. The book also features Anna Rhodius, a mistress of the King of Denmark, who is exiled to the island of Vardø and longs to return to her former life at court. Bergman's writing is captivating and poetic, and the novel incorporates elements of folklore, including those of the Sámi people, which adds to its richness and depth. Bergman's thorough research is evident, and she includes a section at the end of the book that provides a detailed account of the events that occurred in Vardø during 1662-3, as well as the names of the women who lost their lives during those years. The audiobook edition, narrated by Sofia Engstrand, is a delightful listening experience. "The Witches of Vardø" is a remarkable debut novel that beautifully blends fact and fiction and is a testament to the power of storytelling.

I enjoyed this book and found the narration fabulous. I loved the historical history and the connection to the true life events. It was abit long and I feel could have been abit shorter

While this isn’t always an easy read I thought it was an excellent one.

The book vividly captures the terror of the witch hunt and the aggression and cruelty of the men involved. The fact that women could be accused of being a witch by anyone, for even the slightest misdemenour and have that accusation taken seriously without a chance to defend theselves seems so incredible to us today but such was the hysteria around witchcraft. This is really brought to life in this book.

Even outwith being accused as a witch, this book presented a vivid portrayal of just how difficult life as a woman could be in that time where they were so dependent on men and very much bound by societal expectations.

The characters are excellent and well drawn even the ones I hated. Ingeborg was a particular favourite. Circumstances have meant she has had to grow up fast and I really felt for her as she negotiated this new adult world while fighting for her mother’s and then her own survival.

The story is an incredible weaving of fact, fiction and folklore and I loved it.

The narrator, Sofia Engstrand was excellent. I thought her pronunciations (which I would surely have mangled in my head) brought an extra edge and immersiveness to the story.

It’s October, and here’s a review of a book about witches…

‘The Witches of Vardo’ by Anya Bergman. Review audiobook gifted by @netgalley and @manilla_press .

Set in north Norway and Denmark, this is a vividly atmospheric tale of the witch panic that demonised women on the bleak Varangar peninsular in the mid-17th century. It follows the stories of teenaged Ingeborg as she strives to keep her family going after they are hit by tragedy, and of middle-aged Anna, banished to the desolate island prison of Vardo from the Danish court, desperate to prove her innocence and win her freedom. As arrests are made for suspected witchcraft, their stories converge explosively as they employ very different methods to attempt to free the accused women.

There are some exceptionally vile male characters, notably the governor and his despicable Scottish witch Hunter, and an array of maligned and misunderstood women, including the indomitable Maren, daughter of the most feared with ever burnt on Vardo and a Barbary pirate (and is a bit like a cross between Philip Pullman’s Lyra Bellacqua and Pippi Longstocking). The quest also brings in help from the Sami, whose way of life is equally threatened by the forces of intolerant Danish Puritanism. It’s a clever, forceful and poignant story about mother-daughter relationships, hypocrisy, brutal superstition, and the powerlessness of the poor. If you like a strong feminist edge to your historical fiction, add this to your TBR.

What I loved were the superb descriptions of the flora and fauna of these lands on the edge of the artic circle, which are woven beautifully with folklore and the girls’ stories.

I read this an audiobook narrated by Sofia Engstrand, whose masterful pronunciation of the Norwegian place names and terms greatly enhanced it.

Thanks to Netgalley and Manilla Press for an audiobook copy of this novel. I found this a very powerful novel, narrated wonderfully by Sofia Engstrand that shows the incredible misogyny at play at the height of the witch trials that occurred all over Europe and America in the time period. This particular novel is set in the far north of Norway in the 1660s where Anna, a widow who was educated in medicine by her father, the court physician, is sent in disgrace to a remote place in the north of the kingdom. There she struggles against a disdainful misogynistic bailiff, a former witch hunter from Scotland and a dismissive governor to try and maintain her dignity and ultimately her survival. They’ve been tasked with rooting out and eliminating witches and she offers her services, as a matter of survival. Her first person viewpoint is conveyed through letters to the king, who she knew from a youth when her father was court physician, and we learn of her past and the king’s.
Ingeborg provides a third person viewpoint. She’s the daughter of the beautiful Zigri, a fisherman’s widow who attracted the attention of the merchant’s married son. The wife of the merchant’s son notices and to Ingeborg’s horror accuses Zigri of witchcraft. Her efforts to try and free her mother lead her to her cousin Maren, whose own mother had been accused and killed for witchcraft due to her association with the Sami. Through Maren, a different world opens up for Ingeborg and its effects on the events that unfold in this remote place are powerful.
Weaving in Sami tales and the vivid setting of the Norwegian north, it’s a compelling tale that has much power. As an historian of women’s history, the misogyny that is described in this novel isn’t anything new, but the events and the motivations still have something to in today’s world. The narration is excellent giving both an authentic feel to the Norwegian names and places and a wonderful variation in voices, as well as infusing the perfect amount of drama and expression in each scene. Well worth a listen.

The Witches of Vardo by Anya Bergman is set in 1662 Norway, blending the real life events of the Norwegian witch trials with magical realism and Norse mythology. When widowed Zigri starts an affair with a married nobleman, she is condemned as a witch and sent away to await trial, leaving behind her daughters Ingeborg and Kirsten. Alongside her outcast friend Maren, Ingeborg embarks on a grueling journey during the winter darkness to rescue her mother, meeting Sami boy Zare along the way.

Meanwhile, Zigri is held captive in the witch’s hole at Vardo, tended to by Anna, who has been promised freedom in exchange for Zigri’s confession. I love a book where the landscape is a character in itself (lookin’ at you Burial Rites) and really enjoyed the historical context but, for a book that is so centered on women - their fortitude and kinship, as well as their persecution - it felt ironic that it was the male characters that benefited from the most character development.

Where to begin my thoughts on this book.

Its a mixture of historical and fiction but I do believe parts of this book is based on true events.

The historical parts was nailed. it felt very believable.

The characters. They were fleshed out and well written, but it was hard to read about their story. Women put against women in fear of being labeled a witch. The trials they went through. Especially the SA scene.

And the men in this book. Knowing this is how they most likely were in real life, abusive, threating to put the skull on women is horrifying and makes me so angry.

This book was hard for me to read because of the themes it covers, how angry it made me on behalf of the characters. it was beautifully written and a story everyone needs to read.

A bittersweet ending but worked for the story. I was so happy to what happened to certain characters.

A great story that had me thinking about women history and about how many were wrongly accused of being a witch and what happened to them.

I felt that this one started off quite slowly and i wasnt massive taken with it but about halfway through it really ramped up and by the end i was hooked.
A strong, feminist telling of a real historical event that leaves you feeling sad (for the victims and women in general) and positive (for women's strength and determination) all at once.

Audio narrator was great. Captured the nuance and atmosphere of the book.



I think I'm a bit jaded on this type of story. It's starting to feel as if every other reading group fiction book I pick up is about the persecution of women as witches. Some of them are historically accurate. Some of them...aren't. As far as I can see this is very well researched as well as beautifully written. It has a melancholy flavour and the setting - 17th C Norway - is interesting. However that's as far as it went for me. The characters were well drawn but held me at arms length. The style was poetic but not engaging - to me at least. There were lots of carefully plotted and written scenes but very little actually happened. If I was not so fed up of the general subject, I probably would have enjoyed this more despite it being quite low plot and style over substance, so please do check out other reviews. To be honest if you enjoyed 'Now She is Witch', 'The Book of Eve', 'Weyward' or a slew of others, then this will be right up your street.

I think the story had promise but I was listening to the audiobook and the narrator for some reason really overpronounces the names - it was as if she stopped and took a breath before saying "Innnngeeeeborrrrgeee." Every. Single. Time. I couldn't bear it. Maybe one day I'll come back to the print version since the story sounded like it might be up my street.

"The Witches of Vardo" has a really interesting premise and, overall, I really enjoyed the plot, but the book could have done with a little more editing, in my opinion. The story dragged in several places and I think I would have enjoyed it more if the book had been streamlined a little more.

Also, the narrator weirdly over-pronounced the names for some reason.

Rating 3.5/5

This isn’t a book I would ordinarily pick up but I felt like I kept seeing it everywhere and that reviews were generally favourable so I decided that I would like to give it a try and got the opportunity to listen to it as an audiobook.

I will start by saying that it is not an easy book to listen to, the injustice for the women in the story is enough to make you mad but that coupled with the emotion in the narrator’s voice at times made it quite a difficult listen for me. I had to take some breaks from listening because I felt like my emotions were getting a bit too tumultuous; the author can certainly create both wonderful and despicable characters and they had me oscillating between anger and joy regularly. It does have some pretty fantastic folklore tales interspersed throughout too that are a refreshing change in quite a heavy story.

The story is told from two main viewpoints, Ingeborg who is determined to try and save her mother who has been accused of being a witch and Anna who has been imprisoned on Vardø and tells her story in the form of letters written to the King. I quite liked switching between the two and getting to see very different perspectives, it highlighted how difficult it was for women no matter what choices they made or circumstances they were born into.

Ingeborg was such a resilient character, not always a character I felt fond of, but I appreciated how hard she fought to try and save her mother and that she remained a strong character even through the terrible things that she had to endure. Maren was a brilliant character, strong, defiant and a little mysterious, I liked that she was the one who fought back against the men and how they treated the women by leaning into any power that she could find, even if it was just perpetuating some of the actions they were calling witchcraft.

Anna is a more complex character, at first, you feel sorry for her, then she is put in a position that nobody would choose to be in and makes some choices that feel terrible and selfish but also understandable. It was tough to think about how her choice of self-preservation was to the detriment of other women and that there were probably many women who found themselves in that position.

I definitely enjoyed the story, even though it doesn’t feel right to use that word due to the book’s subject matter, I did find that there were parts I got through quickly and others that seemed to drag on a little but I was hooked by the end desperate to discover what was in store for the women on Vardø. I feel like the author did an amazing job of capturing the setting and the atmosphere and the utter repulsiveness of what was being blamed on witches and the punishments for the so-called witches, it is astonishing and infuriating all at once.

The narrator, Sofia Engstrand, did a wonderful job, she captured the unique voice of every character and I liked that she could pronounce the names and places the way they were supposed to be, it definitely makes a difference. I also loved that the author included a section at the end that shares some more information about the references she used but also gives us a little more insight into the real events on Vardø that inspired the book.

The Witches of Vardø is a dark and heavy story but it is handled with care and even in its more difficult parts it is one worth knowing, even though it may wring every sort of emotion out of you.

If you're looking for a witchy read, then this is the one for you. I would compare it to The Mercies, where is delves into the Norwegian witch trials in the 17th Century. At this time, women were at serious risk of being accused of being a witch, for very petty reasons. It was a dangerous time to be a woman, anywhere.

I really enjoyed reading The Witches of Vardo, it was atmospheric and the inclusion and weaving of folklore tales into the story gave the book a sense of true authenticity I loved Anya's writing style, I found it very enjoyable to read.

Thank you for the review copy.

I am fascinated by witchcraft, and will always take a look at novels around it.
The premise sounded right up my street, and I was thrilled to get access to the audiobook. I don't know why, but I played the first chapters over and over and my attention waned every time. I'm so sad. I wanted to love it. My concentration has been poor of late, but some books have still managed to grab me. Unfortunately, this one didn't.